Showing papers on "Social network published in 1986"

Social Foundations of Thought and Action

Abstract: bandura a 1986 social foundation of thought and, presents a comprehensive theory of human motivation and action from a social cognitive perspective this insightful text addresses the prominent roles played by cognitive vicarious self regulatory and self reflective processes in psychosocial functioning emphasizes reciprocal causation through the interplay of cognitive behavioral and environmental factors and systematically applies the, presents a comprehensive theory of human motivation and action from a social cognitive perspective this insightful text addresses the prominent roles played by cognitive vicarious self regulatory and self reflective processes in psychosocial functioning emphasizes reciprocal causation through the interplay of cognitive behavioral and environmental factors and systematically applies the,

Assessment of Basic Social Skills

Abstract: California State University, FullertonFollowing recent developments in the measurement of individual differences in nonverbal socialskills, we proposed a conceptual framework for defining and assessing basic social skills. Preliminarytesting resulted in the development of a 105-item, pencil-and-paper measure of seven basic dimen-sions of social skills, called the Social Skills Inventory (SSI). In a series of validation studies usingundergraduate students, the SSI demonstrated convergent and discriminant validity in relation toother measures of nonverbal social skill and traditional personality scales. Scores on the SSI alsopredicted some social group memberships, typical social behaviors, and the depth of social networks.This evidence suggests that the SSI could prove to be a valuable tool for research in personality andsocial psychology and for work in applied settings.In recent years there has been increased attention to denningand assessing individual differences in social abilities and inter-personal skills. Work in this area is progressing on severalfronts. Psychologists have become increasingly concerned withthe assessment and development of social skills for assistingclinical populations (see Curran & Monti, 1982; Trower, Bry-ant, & Argyle, 1978; Wine & Smye, 1981). Personality and so-cial psychologists have developed standardized instruments thatassess dimensions related to interpersonal skill and social effec-tiveness, for example, measures of constructs such as empathy(Hogan, 1969; Mehrabian & Epstein, 1972), shyness, sociabil-ity, (Cheek & Buss, 1981), and self-monitoring (Snyder, 1974,1979). Communication researchers have concerned themselveswith the assessment of communicative competence (Diez,1984;Wiemann, 1977;WiemannB E. L. Thorndike, 1920;R. L. Thorndike, 1936; R. L. Thorndike & Stein, 1937). How-ever, difficulties in assessing social intelligence, particularly theinability to discriminate social intelligence from general intelli-gence, led to the demise of this line of research. It was manyyears later that research on the measurement of social abilitieswas revived with the work of Ouilford and his colleagues onbehavioral intelligence (Guilford, 1967) and the development ofscales to assess empathy (Dymond, 1949; Hogan, 1969). MoreThis research was supported by intramural grants from CaliforniaState University, Fullerton (CSUF) and from a CSUF President's Sum-mer Research Grant.Special thanks go to Barbara Throckmorton, Kathy Lang, and BruceSmith for their tremendous assistance in data collection and to MariaHale, Patti Hopkinson, Larisa Lamb, Mary Lybeck, Kevin McNulty,Mitch Okada, and Debbie White for their help. Chris Cozby, RichardLippa, Keith Widaman, Stan Woll, and Judy Zimmerman made manyhelpful comments and suggestions.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Ron-ald E. Riggio, Department of Psychology, California State University,Fullerton, California 92634.recent are the attempts to measure individual differences innonverbal communication skill (Rosenthal, 1979; see alsoO'Sullivan, 1983, for a historical overview).Although the present research is most closely aligned withthis latest orientation, it is impossible to define social skillswithout incorporating the work of a vast array of social scienceresearchers. There is perhaps no adequate single definition ofsocial skills. The variety and assortment of dimensions labeledas social skills is enormous. Yet there are certain consistenciesin the varying theoretical perspectives. Many social skill re-searchers agree that the basic sending and receiving of informa-tion represent key social skills. Indeed, Hall (1979) divided so-cial communication skills into two broad classes of sending andreceiving. Additional social skills involve cognitive abilitiessuch as interpersonal problem-solving skills and role-playingabilities (Meichenbaum, Butler, & Gruson, 1981).Many existing measures of social skills focus on a single, spe-cific type of skill, skill deficit, or skill-related construct such asassertiveness (Rathus, 1973), nonverbal sensitivity (Rosenthal,Hall, DiMatteo, Rogers, & Archer, 1979), fear of negative evalu-ation (Watson & Friend, 1969), or communication apprehen-sion (McCroskey, 1977). Some instruments that purport tomeasure singular dimensions of social skill may, in fact, be as-sessing constructs that are truly multidimensional; that is, com-prised of more basic independent social skills. Such appears tobe the case with Snyder's Self-Monitoring Scale (SMS, Snyder,1974), which may be composed of three more basic social skills(Briggs , Cheek & Buss 1980 ; Riggio Friedman 1982 seealso Lennox & Wolfe, 1984). Similar multidimensionality mayunderly the constructs of empathy (Davis, 1983) and assertive-ness (Galassi, Galassi, & Vedder, 1981).The presen t study is an attemp to develop general frame-work for several basic dimensions of social skill and to reporton the construction of a self-report assessment tool to measurethese basic skill dimensions. This framework is derived frommultidisciplinary research on social and interpersonal skills,but it springs most directly from the attempts of social personal-ity psychologists to measure individual differences in nonverbalcommunication skills. Most notable of these attempts are thework of Rosenthal and his colleagues (Rosenthal et al., 1979)and Buck (1984) on measuring nonverbal sensitivity, Friedman

Social ties and mortality in evans county, georgia

Abstract: In an attempt to replicate Berkman and Syme's study of social networks and mortality in Alameda County, California, the authors investigated the relationship between a social network index and survivorship from 1967 to 1980 in the Evans County, Georgia, cohort. They constructed an index modeled after the Berkman Social Network Index and tested it in race- and sex-specific proportional hazards models for 2,059 subjects who were examined in 1967-1969 during the Evans County Cardiovascular Epidemiologic Study. The present study emphasized a priori specification of the social network index and statistical hypothesis test. Descriptive analyses were consistent with a modest social networks effect (e.g., hazard ratio (95 per cent confidence interval) of 1.6 (1.2-2.2) ). Among white males, the age-adjusted hazard ratio comparing the lowest to the highest value of our six-level index was 2.0 (1.2-3.4), but control for potential confounders (principally cardiovascular disease risk factors) reduced this value to 1.5 (0.8-2.6). The social networks effect among white females, black males, and black females was weaker and clearly nonsignificant. Exploratory analyses suggested that marital status, church activities, and an alternate social network index predicted survivorship, but not in a dose-response fashion. Reduced survivorship among older subjects with few social ties was the most important feature of the data.

Social networking, hardiness and immigrant's mental health.

Abstract: Previous investigations of immigrant mental hospitalization rates have accumulated inconclusive evidence in regard to native-foreign differentials. We attempt to examine factors that protect voluntary immigrants from psychological impairment. Unlike existing studies, which tend to regard immigrants as merely reactive to stressful life changes accompanying immigration, we assume immigration can be used as a vehicle for personal advancement. We hypothesize that the immigrant's activism in cultivating social networks in the receiving society, and hardiness in the personality repertoire, are the chief means of ameliorating strain. Also examined are issues related to (/) the nature of social networks, (2) ties to the immigrant community and to the host society, and (3) how these ties influence adaptation.

Social support, stress, and well-being among older adults

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to examine whether social support buffers the deleterious effects of stressful life events on depressive symptoms among a random community sample of older adults. Previous research has provided contradictory conclusions regarding the stress buffering capacity of supportive social relations. The reason for these inconclusive findings may be traced in part to the failure of researchers to disaggregate their social support and stressful life event inventories. The findings from the present study reveal that, although social support fails to modify the effects of a global stressful life events indicator, specific types of social support buffer the impact of specific types of stressors (bereavement, crime, and social network crises).

Social network development and functioning during a life transition

Abstract: A 12-week longitudinal study of the development of social support networks among college freshmen is presented. Eighty-nine male and female students who lived either in university residence halls or at home with their parents completed a series of questionnaires in which they described their social networks while attending college and their adaptation to university life. In accord with an ecological view of social support, the structural and functional characteristics of the freshmen's networks were found to vary with the focal individual's gender, living situation, and the temporal stage of the network. Further, network characteristics were significantly associated with the freshmen's successful adaptation to college, though the relative adaptiveness of particular network characteristics varied over time.

Social networks and social competence: exploring the effects of early adolescent friendships.

Abstract: This study explored the relationship between friendship social network variables and social competence indices using a sample of 98 young black lower SES adolescents. Analyses indicated that perceived emotional support received from friends and the number of reciprocated best friends in an adolescents' social network were related positively. Multivariate hierarchical regression analyses indicated that perceived friend emotional support and number of reciprocated best friends contributed independently to school competence, peer competence, and perceived self-competence measures. The friendship network's school achievement orientation was related positively to school competence but was unrelated to peer or perceived self-competence. Friendship network density did not add to the variance explained by the other network variables. Methodological contributions of this study include the development of a computer program to map friendship networks and the expansion of network analysis beyond the examination of social support functions.

The social costs of unemployment: implications for social support.

Abstract: Social support is typically viewed as a stable factor that is potentially an important moderator of the effects of stressful life events. This study examines the effect of one economic stressor, unemployment, on social support, the mediation of this effect, and then the stress-buffering hypothesis. Data were taken from a longitudinal panel study of 82 blueand white-collar men who recently experienced unemployment. Social support was measured in three ways: 1) marital and family support; 2) help (from outside the family) with problems; and 3) number and frequency of contacts with social network members. Following unemployment, a significant decline in two offour indicators of marital support was found for all workers. When the number of weeks of unemployment was considered, a decrease in the quality of the marital relation and an increase in help with problems was found for white-collar workers. A decrease in frequency of contact with network members for blue-collar workers was also observed. Mediation analyses indicated that unemployment has a negative effect on marital and family support in part through its effect on the husband's psychological wvell-being. Two different methods for estimating the stress-buffering effects of supports most susceptible to change during job loss indicate that buffering does occur. The conceptual implications of the nonindependence between stressful events and social supports for the stress buffering hypothesis are examined.

The Web of Conformity: A Network Approach to the Explanation of Delinquent Behavior

Abstract: I use concepts and assumptions from the literature on social networks to construct a theory of delinquent behavior. The major premise of the theory is that the structural characteristics of a social (personal) network affect the degree to which participation in the network constrains behavior. I base hypotheses at both the social psychological and social structural levels of analysis on the structural characteristics of networks of multiplexity and density. Then I examine how this approach can account for some perplexing findings from past work on the relationships between social class and delinquent behavior. My essential argument is that social status and status area are related to delinquent behavior because they affect the structure of social networks.

Gender differences in predicting loneliness from social network characteristics.

Abstract: In two studies we examined gender differences in predicting loneliness from measures of social network structure and a measure of perceived social support. The results showed that social network characteristics, especially density, were consistently better predictors of perceived loneliness for men than for women. Study 1 used the traditional measure of network density in which the number of relationships among network members was determined. Study 2 used a newly developed index of density that assessed the extent of closeness of relationships between pairs of network members. Uniformly, male subjects with more highly interconnected, cohesive sets of friends reported themselves to be less lonely, whereas density had little relation to loneliness in female subjects. These results are discussed as possibly indicating that men and women use different standards in evaluating whether they are lonely. It is suggested that men may use more group-oriented criteria in evaluating loneliness, whereas women focus more on the qualities of dyadic relationships.

Satisfaction with social support during crisis: intimacy and self-esteem as critical determinants.

Abstract: Satisfaction with social support was studied longitudinally in a group of 113 Israeli women following the outcome of both normal and medically complicated pregnancies. Greater intimacy with spouse and with friends were found to be related to greater satisfaction with support received during this crisis period. Intimate ties contributed to satisfaction with support independent of self-esteem, social network parameters, and type of pregnancy outcome. Social network parameters and pregnancy outcome were not found to be related to satisfaction with support. Among women low in self-esteem, greater intimacy with family was found to be related to lower satisfaction with support if the women lacked intimate ties with spouse or a friend. The findings were discussed in light of clinical and social psychological theories regarding reaction to aid.

Knowledge Acquisition as a Social Phenomenon.

Abstract: The acquisition of knowledge, the development of the individual's knowledge bases, does not occur in a vacuum. The social context, both social structure (the perceived regularities in the social network) and social knowledge, appears to be related to the individual's acquisition of knowledge. In this article, the relationship between the social world and individual knowledge acquisition is explored. A general theory is postulated and then formulated as a model. The basic theory is predicated on the assumption that social interaction is the driving force behind knowledge acquisition.

Paradigms and Groups

Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter presents the dominant paradigmatic preferences of social psychology to describe whose actions should be studied and the way observations should be related to one another. Substantively and methodologically, the contemporary version of social psychology so thoroughly overlaps other areas of psychology that it has little claim to distinctiveness, and social psychology has failed to provide a very supportive intellectual environment for the study of groups. As these characteristics of the discipline reflect the dominant paradigmatic preferences of the field, they are unlikely to change very rapidly in the near future. The fact that social psychology has not provided a very nurturing environment for the study of groups seems self-evident. A discipline that highlights the proximal (often internal) antecedents of the individual's behavior in experimental situations focuses on specific acts of individuals rather than upon sequences of acts and relies heavily on self-report data that is not likely to encourage scholars, who wish to examine the system-like the qualities of groups. Many social psychologists complain about the restrictive impact of experimental designs, but social psychology remains an overwhelmingly experimental endeavor and strongly dominated by laboratory research.

Defining Feminist Social Work

Abstract: IN NUMEROUS ways, the values, ethical commitments, purposes, and philo sophical systems of feminism and social work converge and impart added mean ing to each other. Although the social work profession has recognized some value in the insights provided by feminism, little effort has been made to incorporate femi nist perspectives and theories into social work's knowledge base. The profession has yet to recognize and articulate the elemental core of shared social work and

Analysing social policy

Abstract: This work brings together the different traditions of social policy study - social administration, welfare economics and marxist political economy - to shed light on the complex relationships between the state, poverty and inequality, the current fiscal crisis, bureaucracy and social welfare, and the making and implementation of policy. Their approach is detailed and comparative, considering the functioning and objectives of social policies in advanced Western societies from a British perspective. This book follows on from Michael Hill's "Understanding Social Policy". In explaining the concepts and theories in greater depth, it should be useful for students of sociology, politics, economics and social administration.

Personal Choice and Social Constraint in Close Relationships: Applications of Network Analysis

Abstract: Social psychologists have long subscribed to the notion that individuals are as active in constructing their environment as they are reactive and defined by it. Lewin (1935,1951), for example, understood behavior to be a function of the person and environment or life space, that is, B = f(PE). The life space was defined rather broadly as the totality of mutually interdependent and coexisting psychological, social, and physical facts that influence both thought and behavior (cf. Lewin, 1951). The concept of social network provides a means of specifying the structure and content of one aspect of the life space, the social environment. The investigation of social networks suggests a level of analysis distinct from the individual or dyadic levels of analysis that link the causes of behavior to personal characteristics or characteristics of specific relationships.

A Social Network Approach and the Revolving Door Patient

Abstract: Traditional psychiatric treatment approaches have not been very successful with the "revolving door patient." A variety of findings suggest that the social network, as opposed to the individual patient, may be a more viable locus for intervention. A conceptual review and analysis of the literature reveals two constructs salient to understanding social networks: flexibility and stability. The networks of revolving door patients are frequently characterized as inflexible and/or unstable. Assessment methods as well as strategies for balancing flexibility and stability are described. Enlarging the network, increasing multiplexity, and/or reducing the negative effects of attitudinal inflexibility encompass the strategies for increasing flexibility, while developing connections between individuals, generating spans between clusters of people in the network, and increasing multiplexity are recommended for increasing stability. The assets and liabilities of each of these strategies are discussed.

Life space and social networks as political contexts

Abstract: Based on data collected in the course of the September and November 1980 waves of the National Election Studies, this contextual analysis of interpersonal relations in social networks presents two major findings: First, the neighborhood as a geographical unit does not appear to be a perceptually salient environment for political behavior; and second,particular neighbors, individually linked to a voter, appear to constitute a social network that has an independent impact on partisan affect for the political parties and their candidates as well as on stability or change in vote preferences as the electoral season goes forward. Thus, although the neighborhood appears to be of minor importance as a politicalenvironment, social relations among particular neighbors result in an interpersonalcontext that has an impact on political behavior.

Action and Institution, Network and Function: The Cybernetic Concept of Social Structure

Abstract: A program of research on the formal representation and analysis of institutional structures is taken a step further by integrating it with recent developments in the formal representation of hierarchical levels of inclusion or part-whole relations. We begin by reviewing a cybernetic conception of action and show how this relates to the construction of production system models of institutional structures. Thereafter, we treat the inclusion hierarchy to show how the production rule constitutes the conceptual unit integrating social knowledge and social action upon which are built two hierarchies, involving institutional entities and social networks, respectively. We indicate some of the detailed forms of control involved in these hierarchies and then show how a form of functional analysis can be undertaken on this basis. Finally, we provide a lengthy discussion of the promise and problems of this mode of structural analysis.

Social support, dementia and depression among the elderly living in the Hobart community

Abstract: In a community sample of the elderly (N = 274) in Hobart, Tasmania, cases of dementia and depression were ascertained by the Canberra Geriatric Mental State and the Mini Mental State Examination. Social relationships and support were examined by means of the Interview Schedule for Social Interaction. The elderly had fewer social relationships than younger adults, but were more content with what they did have. Elderly women had more affectional ties than elderly men. The presence of offspring in the same town increased the number of close ties and of social relationships, but was more important for men than for women. Persons with cognitive impairment or an established dementia reported that they had less social interaction than they would like. Depressed subjects reported having markedly less social interaction than the mentally healthy elderly, but did not complain that it was too little. This study provides a systematic description of the social environment of the elderly, both in mental health and in states of depression or impaired cognition.

Social Support, Social Networks, Social Exchange, and Social Work Practice

Abstract: Three interrelated "theories" are presented: social support, social networks, and social exchange, and their utility for social work practice is assessed. Frequently, the terminology of these theories is used in social work to replace well-established terms, while the real utility of the theories is overlooked. The author explains how these concepts can be useful to social workers, especially in work with collaterals. The utility of these ideas is related to the professional's objectives. Bureaucratic and professional authority are also salient variables.

Social networks and adult social identities: profiles and correlates of support and rejection.

Abstract: The growth of interest in social networks has underscored the need for integrative analyses of network dimensions. A three-pronged strategy to achieve this objective was pursued in a study of 261 married women nurses. First, network variables related to important adult social identities were differentiated. Factor analyses revealed four network interaction factors: work support, work rejection, general support, and general rejection. An additional factor analysis differentiated work associates from nonwork network members. Second, cluster analysis of these factor scores identified five different network profiles. The profiles differed in the importance of the woman's work to her nonwork ties as well as the frequency and pattern of different positive and negative interactions. Third, individuals with these contrasting network profiles differed on levels of life satisfaction and psychological symptomatology. The discussion emphasizes social network differences within the broader context of the ecology of human development.